The president, seen here with Cohn, does not appear to have begun his remedial hand-shaking classes.

By Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

Few of Donald Trump’s critics failed to notice that the same candidate who railed against Wall Street on the campaign trail quickly endeavored as president to drain the Goldman Sachs swamp by hiring away much of the bank’s top talent: Goldman Sachs partner Dina Powell, former partner Steven Mnuchin, ex-banker Stephen Bannon, and a handful of other Goldman-affiliates, including Trump’s S.E.C. pick Jay Clayton, who represented Goldman among his clients. In mid-December, Trump dealt the ultimate death-blow to the financial establishment by poaching the bank’s no. 2, Gary Cohn, the president of Goldman Sachs, to serve as his top economic adviser.

For Wall Street antagonists like Senator Elizabeth Warren, Cohn’s leadership of the National Economic Council was a personal affront that only grew more offensive when Trump thanked Cohn and JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon before signing a pair of executive orders intended to gut Dodd-Frank, the regulatory framework put in place to prevent another financial crisis, and a fiduciary rule intended to force brokers to act in their clients’ best interests. In the pages of The Wall Street Journal and on cable news shows like CNBC, there was Cohn, insisting that the billions banks would save by dismantling Dodd-Frank would be a mere happy byproduct. The fiduciary rule, he argued, was like preventing freedom-loving Americans from eating unhealthy foods just because they “might die younger.” Doesn’t everyone deserve to make that decision on their own?

Still, even Cohn’s biggest critics might be breathing a sigh of relief these days to have him in Trump’s inner circle. While slashing critical financial regulations and letting brokers scam retirees is pretty unpalatable, in this horror show of an administration, wherein the former chairman of Breitbart News is dictating policy, Cohn actually represents something of a voice of reason. With the rest of Trump’s top advisers agitating for trade wars with Mexico, real wars with China, and a 1920s-era immigration policy, Cohn, a longtime Democratic donor who is comfortable working both sides of the aisle, may be the last line of defense for Washington centrists hoping to keep Trump’s nationalist brain trust at bay. Per Politico’s Ben White:

The more critical and long-term question for executives across multiple industries is whether Cohn will emerge as a powerful countervailing economic force to temper Trump's instincts toward protectionism. To pull this off, Cohn will have to nudge Trump himself while also muscling out Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller as well as to lesser degrees Trump adviser Peter Navarro and Commerce secretary nominee Wilbur Ross.

If anyone can pull this off, it's Cohn, a powerful personality not known to be shy about making his views known. He has an added bonus in his favor: he came into the Trump orbit through Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, critical advisers to the president. Those inclined to Cohn's worldview inside the administration believe the former Goldman banker will eventually win the day. Some even mention him as a potential future chief of staff or shadow chief of staff.

For companies and investors who like Trump's plans for tax cuts and regulatory relief, the hope is that when the shake-up comes, hard-line voices like Bannon and Miller will be marginalized and more moderate, business-friendly advisers like Cohn, [former Goldman partner Dina] Powell, and current chief of staff Reince Priebus will emerge with stronger hands.

In the battle royale that is the Trump White House, Cohn may have a good chance of coming out on top. Trump has long been known to encourage his staff to compete with each other, a practice he fostered at the Trump Organization and one that was put into sharp relief on the campaign trail and during the transition, as internal conflict resulted in the ousters of Corey Lewandoski, Paul Manafort, and finally Chris Christie in quick succession. Rudy Giuliani, too, got the boot. The most recent victim of the White House Game of Thrones was Anthony Scaramucci, who lost his promised West Wing job last week amid questions about his inability to quickly clear the government’s vetting process. (The official line was that Scaramucci’s sale of his business to a Chinese conglomerate posed too many conflicts of interest, but sources close to the administration believe tension between Scaramucci and Priebus was a deciding factor.)

Given that Trump reportedly hired Cohn as much for his well-fitted suits and alpha attitude as his financial acumen (Trump liked that he “carried himself like someone to reckon with,” aides told Axios), Trump would probably be thrilled to see Cohn and Bannon fight each other to the death. Cohn’s already started small, according to The Washington Post, “work[ing] prevent CNBC commentator Larry Kudlow, a longtime Trump economic adviser, from joining the administration” and reportedly trying to “sideline Peter Navarro, a vocal China critic and hard-liner on trade inside the White House.”

It might sound counterintuitive, but remember, according to organizational experts, Trump is a horrible manager. This kind of thing is right up his alley.

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Alternative Facts

Speaking of Dodd-Frank, one of the criticisms that’s been levied against it is that it prevents banks from lending. Trump himself said on Friday that he knows “so many people, friends of mine, that have nice businesses, [that] can’t borrow money. . .because the banks just won’t let them borrow because of the rules and regulations in Dodd-Frank.” Unfortunately, there’s little evidence that’s true. Per CNBC:

Statistics on bank lending don't back up that claim. Since the law took effect in July 2010, bank lending to businesses and consumers has continued to hit new highs.

Great work, Donny!

It turns out that Trump’s unhinged tweeting about Mexico paying for The Wall, his threatening tone toward Mexico’s president, and his general unpleasantness toward our southern neighbors has not engendered warm and fuzzy feelings between us and Mexico. And in a hilarious twist, Trump’s supposed boardroom tactics are backfiring. “The U.S. trade tensions with Mexico are putting the Mexican government on overdrive trying to find new export markets," said Sean Miner, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, a D.C.-based think tank, told CNBC. “Recently, China and Mexico have become closer. Clearly, this is a consequence of the rising tensions.”

Actual, legitimate investors fell for a Hamilton Ponzi scheme

Paul Tudor Jones is a legendary hedge fund manager who has made billions upon billions of dollars for himself and his investors in Tudor Investment Corp. over the years. (His fund currently manages approximately $11 billion.) For decades, young traders have viewed him as an icon, and getting one’s hands on a copy of Trader—a 1987 PBS documentary about Jones that so embarrassed the billionaire that he bought the rights to prevent subsequent airings—was considered the ultimate coup. And yet even a man with his exquisite professional bona fides was blinded to an obvious scam by the absolute mania surrounding Hamilton. Per Bloomberg:

When U.S. authorities busted a Ponzi scheme that centered on marked-up tickets to the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton” last month, prosecutors described phone calls about a “big name” investor who’d demanded his money back.

As it turns out, there were several big names -- including billionaires Paul Tudor Jones and Michael Dell, as well as an executive at Och-Ziff Capital Management Group -- among the more than 125 people who had unwittingly poured cash into the sprawling scam, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The ringleaders would approach people and encourage them to put money in a pool to buy blocks of tickets for the hottest concerts and plays, the government said. The most prominent was Hamilton, whose popularity pushed prices to the highest in Broadway history. Victims were promised their money back, and at least a 10 percent profit.

Sure, take out Hamilton, and it seems obviously too good to be true, but it’s Hamilton! A show people are taking out second mortgages on their homes to see a year and-a-half after it had its Broadway debut! Without the original cast! How could it not be a sure thing?

Deutsche Bank is sorry

On an almost weekly basis, financial institutions announce they’ve reached settlements with various government regulators over allegations of wrongdoing that they neither admit nor deny but pay millions and billions to put behind them. Generally, they don’t make a big show of apologizing—or apologizing period—unless whatever they’ve been accused of doing is really, really bad and someone in P.R. demands it. If they take out space in the paper to print a memo detailing all their various screw-ups, apologizing for them, and promising to try really hard not to make them in the future, they’re at the point where they’re internally debating if they should just turn off the lights and let squatters take over the place or give it this one last shot. Deutsche Bank knows what we’re talking about:

Deutsche Bank AG bought full-page ads in all major German newspapers over the weekend to apologize for “serious errors” after misconduct costs helped tip the company into two years of losses. Legal cases that date back many years cost the Frankfurt-based company “reputation and trust” in addition to about 5 billion euros ($5.4 billion) since John Cryan took over as chief executive officer in July 2015, the CEO said in the ad, blaming the “misconduct of a few” employees.

Cryan, who signed on behalf of the executive board, expressed “deep regret” that “the conduct of the bank didn’t follow our standards” in relation to the U.S. mortgage business in 2005 to 2007 and was “unacceptable.” That was also the case in other matters, he wrote. . .Deutsche Bank’s leadership will “do everything in our power to prevent these events from re-occurring,” Cryan said in the ad.